When Saints Go Machine have just announced their sophomore album, Infinity Pool. Surprisingly, the album’s first single, “Love and Respect,” features Killer Mike offering a strong and exciting contrast to Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild’s delicate falsetto, while a…
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The strange trembling vocals, warm synth sounds, and chamber pop movements of Konkylie, When Saints Go Machine’s full-length debut, appealed to me in unusual fashion: slowly at first, confounding my senses for a time, before finally winning me over. With time and repeated listening, the album became one of my very favorites of 2011.
There has been a lot of buzz lately generated by show demonstrations of DSD recordings played directly from files and as the opportunity to download DSD files is expanding. The reactions of our writers have ranged from "impressive," to an "epiphany," to my own delight reported in the upcoming May issue of Stereophile. The hardware used has been mostly professional (Sonoma workstation) or semi-professional (Mytek Stereo 192-DSD) or, at the very least, costly enough for the unconvinced to hesitate. Now, in one fell swoop, Oppo has made this possible at no cost at all for those of us who own an…
At the end of April, it will be time to renew the lease on my quaint Kensington duplex. Over the past three years, a cast of typical New Yorkers rotated residency within these plaster walls: stand-up comedians, chefs, and real-estate agents; art handlers and opera singers; venue managers and musicians. Claiming residential seniority over this home of interchanging misfits, it was time to stake claim on the room my system most deserved.
I charged up to Jared’s chamber: “Dude. Today is the day we measure the rooms. We need to know the truth.” Not only did I need to know the room dimensions…
Tomasz Stanko New York Quartet: Wisława
Tomasz Stanko, trumpet; David Virelles, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums
ECM 2304/05 (2 CDs). 2013. Manfred Eicher, prod.; James A. Farber, eng. DDD. TT: 100:28
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Tomasz Stanko, trumpet; David Virelles, piano; Thomas Morgan, bass; Gerald Cleaver, drums
ECM 2304/05 (2 CDs). 2013. Manfred Eicher, prod.; James A. Farber, eng. DDD. TT: 100:28
Performance *****
Sonics ****½
Around the last decade of the previous century, something significant happened in jazz. Suddenly, many of the best players were no longer Americans. Actually, it was not sudden. It was a gradual flowering that achieved critical mass and could no longer be overlooked.
One of the breakthrough players was Tomasz Stanko, of…
Cole Porter: An All-Star Tribute (DVD, VAI) includes outtakes of the great Ethel Merman filming for TV, in 1960, a performance of Irving Berlin's "Alexander's Ragtime Band." In take after take, something goes wrong. Each time the director shouts "Cut!," Merman stops in her tracks, almost as if deflating; when the director yells "Action!" she starts from the top, fresh as new, the model showbiz professional.
This issue of Stereophile hits newsstands days after the first consumer Show of the 2013 season, AXPONA in Chicago, has ended. The next four months see audio shows in Montreal, New…
Hey everyone. Meet Zach.
Zach “The Attacker” Packer is the happy winner of our recent V-Moda M-80 on-ear headphone sweepstakes. Packer, a New York City denizen, strode into the Stereophile offices at 261 Madison on a misty Manhattan afternoon confused by our corporate décor and cubicles. He commented, “You guys sure don’t have a lot of audio gear here.” All he could see were a few boxes of Quarkie’s animal-shaped in-ears. Sorry for the letdown Zach, but we keep our super-secret million-dollar listening room hidden from the public eye. Actually, I don’t even know where it is.
We’re…
Saturday, March 30, 2–5pm: Audio Revelation (2630 Pirineos Way, Carlsbad, California) and On A Higher Note will host an open house featuring Vivid Audio’s G1 Giya loudspeakers and a prototype Luxman DA-06 DSD DAC. On A Higher Note’s Philip O’Hanlon will be on hand to play a selection of his own vinyl records—on a Brinkmann turntable, as well as in hi-rez PCM and DSD formats. Space is limited. RSVP: jay@audiorevelation.com, (760) 944-0444.
Saturday, May 4, 11am–4pm: The Gramophone (7913 104 Street NW, Edmonton, AB, Canada) will host an open house featuring Vivid Audio’s G3 Giya…
Today’s payday. I bought just one title.
But it’s a 6-LP box set. The Transcendental Waterfall: Guitar Excursions, 1963–1967 collects John Fahey’s first six releases: Blind Joe Death, Death Chants, Breakdowns & Military Waltzes, The Dance of Death & Other Plantation Favorites, The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party & Other Excursions, and Days Have Gone By.
The set was released by 4 Men With Beards, on December 18, 2012, and it nagged at me every day thereafter—I kept thinking, “Should I buy it? Should I buy it? Should I…
I knew nothing of Ypsilon when I first saw its products in a room at an overseas audio show. Even though the speakers in this system were complete unknowns, I was convinced that it was the electronics that were responsible for the magical balance of what I was hearing. That was confirmed when I reviewed the VPS-100 phono preamplifier in August 2009 and PST-100 Mk.II preamplifier in July 2011.
Greek austerity ends at the factory door of Ypsilon Electronics. The luxury components designed and manufactured within are innovative, high-performance, visually elegant, and expensive. They're…
Currently, Ypsilon ships to EU countries Aeliuses equipped with 6C45s. More significant, the amps are manufactured with the 6C45 tube-socket base, making them incompatible with the C3g (which Ypsilon also uses in their VPS-100 phono and PST-100 line preamplifiers). Amps shipped to the US are fitted with the C3g base and are normally shipped with that tube, which Backlavas admits has "greater openness and transparency." However, he thinks which tube sounds best will depend on the system the Aelius is used in. He assumed that I'd be reviewing his amps with the less lush-sounding Wilson MAXX…